Laser toner is the ink for laser printers. It is an extremely fine synthetic powder (usually plastic) packed into a cartridge. You insert the cartridge into your laser printer according to the manufacturer's instructions. When the printer goes to print a page, there are several steps to the process:
1. The printer receives an image from your computer.
2. Lasers project the image onto an electromagnetic drum.
3. The drum is charged positively and negatively, and at varying levels of charge, according to the image.
4. The drum attracts the four colors of toner in the cartridge according to the charges the colors are attracted to. The four colors mix to create any of millions of colors.
5. The drum rolls the image onto a page of paper, the page goes through a heating device to melt or burn the color onto the page, and the page is ejected.
This process uses up a lot of laser toner. Typically, a laser toner cartridge will yield a few thousand pages before needing to be replaced. The drum, too, eventually wears out from all the positive and negative charges it gives off, and needs to be replaced every 10,000 – 30,000 pages. Some printers are made with cartridge-and-drum replacement units in mind, while other printers are designed to separate the cartridge and drum. This way, when the cartridge runs out of toner, you don't have to replace the longer lasting drum with it. This saves you money.
You can buy laser toner from your printer's manufacturer, a computer supply store, online, or at any of a number of other types of retailers. To save money, you might want to consider buying in bulk.
Three of the most popular brands of laser toner are HP, Brother, and Samsung.
Laser Toner Info provides detailed information about later toner cartridges and refills, as well as reviews of laser toner products. Laser Toner Info is the sister site of Brochure Printing Web.


Buying Laser Toner Cartridges
Compatible Laser Toner Cartridges
Recently, there has been a huge legal and investigative battle with people selling "compatible" laser toner cartridges. Often, a distributor will sell their defective, ineffective, or even damaging laser toner cartridges to unsuspecting resellers. These cartridges will make weak prints, cause messy ink spray, and may cause serious damage to your printer. So be sure to buy cartridges from an authorized reseller that the manufacturer audits. Check the manufacturer's website to obtain a list of authorized resellers.
Beware of laser toner cartridges that are priced way below market standard. Bad or old packaging should also send up a red flag for phony laser toner cartridges.
Finally, if your cartridge runs out of ink too quickly, gives messy prints, or damages your printer, don't buy from the same retailer again.
This is not to say that all compatible toner cartridges are bunk. But if you're going to spend tens of dollars on a cartridge, why risk it?
Remanufactured Laser Toner Cartridges
Most manufacturers, and some third-party distributors, will give you money or discounts in exchange for your old laser toner cartridges. They in turn replace the guts of the cartridge, refill it with toner, and resell it at a big discount. In many cases, the quality is almost exactly the same as new. For example, a black-ink cartridge for an Epson Stylus Color 880 costs $27 from Epson, but only $12 from Rhinotek.
Laser Toner Info provides detailed information about later toner cartridges and refills, as well as reviews of laser toner products. Laser Toner Info is the sister site of Brochure Printing Web.


Purchasing Laser Toner Refills
Laser toner refills can be expensive. Over the life of the printer, expect to spend many times more on laser toner refill than you paid for the printer itself.
Laser printers have two chief replaceable components: laser toner cartridges and drums. The laser toner is basically the ink for the paper. The drum is the cylindrical metal roller that applies the ink to the paper. Sometimes printers are designed for cartridges and drums to be separately replaceable; other printers are designed for cartridge-and-drum units bought as one. While the laser toner will last only a few thousand pages in most home printers, drums will last tens of thousands of pages. If you have to replace the drum every time you replace the cartridge, your printing costs will increase significantly. Therefore, if you don't yet have a printer, get one with separate slots for a laser toner cartridge and drum.
If your laser toner ever gets low, a warning light will appear on the front panel of your printer. When this happens, don't replace the cartridge just yet. You can put off spending the necessary money by removing the cartridge, shaking it gently back and forth a few times to re-spread the toner, and replacing the cartridge. The warning light might still stay on, but the cartridge will have been manually "renewed" for a few dozen (or few hundred, in some cases) more pages worth of printing.
The other way you can save on toner is to use the "draft" function on your computer and printer settings. This will produce printouts that are suitable for your reading, but not suitable for sending out to other people.
Laser Toner Info provides detailed information about later toner cartridges and refills, as well as reviews of laser toner products. Laser Toner Info is the sister site of Brochure Printing Web.